The California youth corrections system is undergoing the most sweeping transformation in its 154-year history. The extraordinary nature of this change is revealed by the striking decline in the state's youth incarceration rate. In 1996, with 10,000 youth confined in 11 state-run correctional facilities, California boasted the nation's third highest youth incarceration rate. Now, with only 800 youth remaining in a system comprised of just three institutions, California has one of the nation's lowest youth incarceration rate. How did such unprecedented changes occur and what were the crucial conditions that produced them? Daniel E. Macallair answers these questions through an examination of the California youth corrections system's origins and evolution, and the patterns and practices that ultimately led to its demise. Beginning in the 19th century, California followed national juvenile justice trends by consigning abused, neglected, and delinquent youth to congregate care institutions known as reform schools. These institutions were characterized by their emphasis on regimentation, rigid structure, and harsh discipline. Behind the walls of these institutions, children and youth, who ranged in age from eight to 21, were subjected to unspeakable cruelties. Despite frequent public outcry, life in California reform schools changed little from the opening of the San Francisco Industrial School in 1859 to the dissolution of the California Youth Authority (CYA) in 2005. By embracing popular national trends at various times, California encapsulates much of the history of youth corrections in the United States. The California story is exceptional since the state often assumed a leadership role in adopting innovative policies intended to improve institutional treatment. The California juvenile justice system stands at the threshold of a new era as it transitions from a 19th century state-centered institutional model to a decentralized structure built around localized services delivered at the county level. After the Doors Were Locked is the first to chronicle the unique history of youth corrections and institutional care in California and analyze the origins of today's reform efforts. This book offers valuable information and guidance to current and future generations of policy makers, administrators, judges, advocates, students and scholars.

This handbook promotes a comprehensive strategy founded on evidence-based programming for juvenile justice systems to adopt or enhance their current system. The comprehensive strategy is supported strongly by the broad research base that is now available. This strategy recognizes, first, that a relatively small proportion of the juveniles who initially enter the juvenile justice system will prove to be serious, violent, or chronic offenders, but that group accounts for a large proportion of the overall amount of delinquency. An important component of a comprehensive evidence-based juvenile justice system, therefore, is distinguishing these offenders from others and focusing attention and resources on that smaller group. Second, a comprehensive strategy recognizes that serious, violent, or chronic delinquency emerges along developmental pathways that progress from less to more serious profiles of offending. Priority must be given to interrupting these offender careers by calibrating the level of supervision and control of the juveniles' behavior to their level of risk. The third major component of a comprehensive strategy, therefore, is effective intervention programs that are capable of reducing the recidivism of those juveniles at risk for further delinquency. The Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders is an administrative framework that supports a continuum of services that parallel the development of offender careers. This framework emphasizes evidence-based programming specifically on recidivism reduction, and supports protocols for developing comprehensive treatment plans that match effective services with offender treatment needs along the life-course of delinquent careers, as they move from intake onward, to probation, community programs, confinement, and reentry. Juvenile justice systems will benefit from incorporation of a comprehensive strategy as provided in the handbook.

Letters to a Lifer provides a rare insight into life without parole (LWOP) for juveniles in the USA. A true story from Pennsylvania, it is a compelling tale of faith and redemption. Cindy Sanford tells how a chance correspondence with Ken, a prisoner artist, began to change her entrenched ideas about offenders. Her book now adds voice to the work of the USA's National Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth and will also be of interest to students of restorative justice. In 1999, America's Most Wanted broadcast details of a notorious crime. Twelve years later Cindy was introduced to Ken, one of the two boys convicted, through his remarkable wildlife art. By then a young man, Ken had spent half his life in prison. Initially wary, Cindy was surprised to find him humble, polite and deeply grateful for her interest. Gradually she and her family were able to look beyond his crime to the person he had become. Despite a hardening of attitudes generally towards offenders in the USA and other parts of the western world, Letters to a Lifer shows why the campaign against LWOP sentences for juveniles is nonetheless gaining momentum.

Mi Rinconcito en el Cielo (My Little Corner of the Sky) tells the remarkable story of Alberto "Beto" Gonzales, who overcame a childhood of poverty, addiction, bigotry, and violence and went on to change the lives of thousands of children and adults as a mentor and gang prevention specialist. The book explores themes of family relationships, neighborhood segregation, the impacts of drug abuse and crime, and the racism and bigotry that children endure without the benefits of adult protectors. Beto's story is one of pain, recovery, and hope, and one that has the power to change lives.

Youth Justice in America, Second Edition engages students in an exciting, informed discussion of the U.S. juvenile justice system and fills a pressing need to make legal issues personally meaningful to young people. Written in a straightforward style, the book addresses tough, important issues that directly affect today's youth, including the rights of accused juveniles, search and seizure, self-incrimination and confession, right to appeal, and the death penalty for juveniles. Focusing on cases that relate to the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the subject matter comes alive through a wide variety of in-book learning aids.

While scholarship on the education of youth behind bars has largely focused on boys, more than one in three youth arrests in the USA is female, and Girls Behind Bars sets out to address this imbalance. The book offers autobiographies, life-stories, and counter-stories in order to challenge simplistic generalizations and empirical prescriptions. Girls Behind Bars provides the educational community with critical perspectives that examine empiricist epistemologies and positivist methodologies that label certain groups of girls as delinquent and mark them for punitive and corrective treatment behind bars. Sharma opens up the discussion on girls' gender, desire, and sexuality by offering a language for these issues absent in educational discourse. Finally, the book supports calls for educators and practitioners in their desire to envision and create transformative spaces that enable young girls behind bars to reclaim their education. Including a foreword by William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, this important and powerful book gives voice to a neglected, silenced, and misrepresented population - young girls behind bars.

Environment and Society relates to a diverse audience and encompasses viewpoints from a variety of natural and social science approaches. This integrative book about human-environment relations connects many issues about human societies, ecological systems, and environments with data and perspectives from different fields of study. Its viewpoint is primarily sociological and it is designed for courses in Environmental Sociology and Environmental Issues, or taught in departments of Sociology, Environmental Studies, Anthropology, Political Science, and Human Geography.

This is a story of crime-engaged youth who have been given a second chance. New York City teens are often faced with conditions that lead to poor education, deprived job opportunities, and a savage cycle of incarceration. But they are almost always faced with a choice. Teens from deprived neighborhoods face an arduous crossroad: should they a) walk the glamorous path of street culture, whose unlawful codas channels them towards fast money, instant gratification, and irretractable respect? Or b) make the steep climb through carceral traps, structural deprivation, and sometimes peer ridicule, in order to achieve legitimate success? This book is also the story of the non-profit community organizations that recognize the difficulty of this decision. To the many that are unfamiliar with New York's poorest neighborhoods, living a 'crime-free lifestyle' is an obvious and easy choice. According to this thinking, those who violate our legal codes should be punished to the fullest extent of the law, no matter the circumstances that led to their unlawful behavior. Throughout the city, there are a small number of alternative-to-incarceration programs designed to give crime-engaged youth a second chance to walk the path of legitimate success. They attempt to fill the void left behind by a poor opportunity structure. This book is a detailed ethnographic account of a select group of teens in New York City, the deprived conditions they face on a daily basis, and the alternative-to-incarceration programs that try to turn their lives around. Included will be the accounts of teens that faced the arduous crossroad and four programs that attempted to teach a set of skills necessary for a crime-free lifestyle: a set of skills that I call a social survival kit.

There are multiple reasons to prevent juveniles from becoming delinquent or continuing to engage in delinquent behaviour. The most obvious reason is that delinquency puts youth at risk for substance abuse and delinquency, school drop-out, gang involvement, criminality, and mental health challenges. Youth engaging in delinquent behaviours are also vulnerable to physical injury, early pregnancy, domestic violence and sexual assault. To address issues of juvenile delinquency, this book describes various youth and family risk and protective factors associated with delinquency and provides a description of various family-oriented treatment options for preventing and treating youth violence and aggression. The authors also examine how sociometric status influences childhood bullying, aggressive behaviour and victimisation. Special attention is given to the affect of sociometric neglect and rejection on child development. In addition, this book summarises the transformation of youth gangs and violence associated with them, the basis of interventions to reduce youth gang affiliation and aggression in these different eras. To conclude, implications for the prevention and treatment of juvenile crime are presented, as well as recommendations for extinguishing violent and aggressive beliefs and behaviours in children.

At a time when problems of crime and antisocial behaviour stimulate debate on big society solutions, this book provides an exceptional means of tracing a line of response which began at the end of the 18th century. Nipping Crime in the Bud explores the origins and development of the Philanthropic Society (and its influence on contemporary institutions) amid growing alarm about crime levels, Draconian sentences under England's Bloody Code and a paucity of effective crime prevention measures. Driven by Enlightenment zeal and ideals, this was the first voluntary sector charity devoted to 'nipping crime in the bud'. It did so through education, training, accommodation, mentoring and support for young people. Uniquely, the book traces the first hard won policy networks and partnerships between government and the voluntary sector. It reveals how-sometimes against the odds, with funding on a knife edge but constantly striving for effective answers-influential philanthropists rose to the challenge and changed approaches to young people involved in crime and delinquency, traces of which endure today within the great crime prevention charities which still rally to this cause. Muriel Whitten's book draws on previously neglected archival sources and other first-hand research to create a formidable and illuminating account about what, for many people, will be a missing chapter in English social and legal history. Review 'Describes in colourful detail the background to the founding of the Society and how its founders and their successors worked. It explains how their plans were put into practice, how they governed and how they acquired support. It skilfully deals with questions that are still asked today such as to what extent are children to be held responsible for wrongdoing? ... Dr Whitten is admirably suited to write such a book ... and] her knowledge and experience are distilled in this comprehensive and well-written book': John Hostettler, legal historian. Read the full review Author Dr. Muriel Whitten has been a youth and family court magistrate and a member of West Sussex Probation Committee. She has lectured widely on criminal justice matters at Goldsmith's and Birkbeck (University of London), the University of Ulster and has presented for CENTREX (now the National Policing Improvement Agency). She has also contributed a weekly column to the Belfast News Letter.

Nowadays, an alarming number of juveniles all over the world find themselves implicated in the juvenile justice system and a great number of them are incarcerated in detention centres or even in jails for adults. The mean age of these youth has lowered dangerously, the percentage of delinquent females has increased dramatically, and the number of minority juveniles within this population has become unjustifiably high. The majority of these young people has diagnosable mental disorders, including substance abuse, learning disorders, ADHD, conduct disorder, anxiety and mood disorders, at rates much higher than in general same-age population. Very often, multiple diagnoses are applicable. Over the last years, experts from medicine, psychology, law, and sociology have been engaged in a number of evidence-based research studies, in order to study the relationship between juvenile delinquency and psychopathology. This research interest has resulted in a proliferation of studies mainly conducted at the U.S., with European countries following this activity. The objective of this book is to provide a comprehensive description of what is currently known in this area, with an emphasis on knowledge informed by empirical research. This way, it is aimed at providing a basis for the elaboration of an integrative perspective of psychopathology in juvenile delinquents and for the elucidation of the complex relationship between mental health disorders and juvenile delinquency. A developmental psychopathology approach is used as this is the area of expertise of the authors, especially regarding assessment, diagnosis and treatment of disruptive behaviour disorders.

Gang activity and related violence threaten public order in a diverse range of communities in the United States today. Congress has long recognised that this problem affects a number of issues of federal concern, and federal legislation has been introduced in the 110th Congress to address some aspects of the issue. Youth gangs have been an endemic feature of American urban life. They are well attested as early as the 18th century and have been a recurrent subject of concern since then. Contemporary views of the problem have been formed against the background of a significant adverse secular trend in gang activity during the last four decades. In particular, the rapid growth of gang membership, geographical dispersion, and criminal involvement during the violent crime epidemic; associated with the emergence of the crack cocaine market during the mid-1980s to the early 1990s; have intensified current concerns. The experience of those years continues to mark both patterns of gang activity and public policy responses toward them. Policy development and implementation in this area are be-devilled by discrepant uses of the term "gang" and the absence of uniform standards of statistical reporting. There are reasons for special care in the use of data on gangs and their activity. Without a standardised definition of what is meant by "gang", such as the age group or activities engaged in by its members, or standardised reporting among the state, local, tribal, and federal levels of government, it is difficult to target anti-gang initiatives and evaluate their effectiveness. According to a national gang survey, the most recent estimate indicates that there were about 760,000 gang members in 24,000 gangs in the United States in 2004. This book provides background information on the issue of youth gangs, including data on gangs and gang crime. It reviews existing anti-gang initiatives at the federal, state, and local levels, and describes some of the legislation proposed during the 110th Congress to address the gang problem, as well as some of the issues raised by those bills.

For over a century, as women have fought for and won greater freedoms, concern over an epidemic of female criminality, especially among young women, has followed. Fear of this crime wave--despite a persistent lack of evidence of its existence--has played a decisive role in the development of the youth justice systems in the United States and Canada. "Justice for Girls?" is a comprehensive comparative study of the way these countries have responded to the hysteria over "girl crime" and how it has affected the treatment of both girls and boys.
Tackling a century of historical evidence and crime statistics, Jane B. Sprott and Anthony N. Doob carefully trace the evolution of approaches to the treatment of young offenders. Seeking to keep youths out of adult courts, both countries have built their systems around rehabilitation. But, as Sprott and Doob reveal, the myth of the "girl crime wave" led to a punitive system where young people are dragged into court for minor offenses and girls are punished far more severely than boys. Thorough, timely, and persuasive, "Justice for Girls?" will be vital to anyone working with troubled youths.

Gang activity and related violence threaten public order in a diverse range of communities in the United States today. Contemporary views of the problem have been formed against the background of a significant adverse secular trend in gang activity during the last four decades. In particular, the rapid growth of gang membership, geographical dispersion, and criminal involvement during the violent crime epidemic -- associated with the emergence of the crack cocaine market during the mid-1980s to the early 1990s -- have intensified current concerns. The experience of those years continues to mark both patterns of gang activity and public policy responses toward them. This book provides background information on the issue of youth gangs, including data on gangs and gang crime. It reviews existing anti-gang initiatives at the federal, state, and local levels, and describes some of the legislation proposed to address the gang problem, as well as some of the issues raised by those bills.

The Second Edition of Preventing and Reducing Juvenile Delinquency: A Comprehensive Framework aims to inform students about the latest research and the most promising and effective programs and provides a wealth of information for understanding, preventing and controlling juvenile delinquency. Key Features Examines the history of current juvenile justice system policies and practices, including the juvenile violence "epidemic" Discusses key myths about juvenile violence and the ability of the juvenile justice system to handle modern-day juvenile delinquents Applies developmental theories of juvenile delinquency to understanding how juvenile offender careers evolve Reviews effective prevention and rehabilitation programs and what does not work Presents a comprehensive framework for building a continuum of effective programs

Intended Audience: This is an ideal supplementary text for undergraduate and graduate courses in juvenile delinquency, juvenile justice, and violent offender intervention courses. It is also essential reading for juvenile justice and social services research and development specialists.

This book presents a detailed and comprehensive critical analysis of evidence on adolescent research from leading international scholars. It explores the prevalence, nature, and trend of juvenile delinquency among Koreans as well as various western countries. It provides information on the socio-cultural contexts related to juvenile delinquency, aggression and violent behaviour among adolescents, substance abuse and delinquency, intra-familial child abuse in South Korea and other western countries. The authors also suggest these problems as a major social issue and present these issues in Korea and its cross-cultural comparison. This book is an ideal textbook for those who wish to explore the nature, trend, prevalence of juvenile delinquency and its cross-cultural comparison.

This book applies modern object relations theory-particularly the concept of intersubjectivity as articulated by Thomas Ogden-to a population for which the 'treatment du jour' is increasingly cognitive-behavioral. Taking his lead from the delinquent adolescents in his practice, Dr. Brodie presents a treatment approach based on respect rather than condescension. Adolescents are related to as people, rather than as transitory objects passing through a 'stage.' Rather than judging their feelings and behaviors as 'aberrant,' the author views them as having emerged out of the complex matrix of his patients' lives. Adolescence and Delinqucney: An Object Relations Theory Approach is less an attempt to apply object relations theory to a particular population than it is an attempt to illuminate the seamlessness of theory and application. Theory and case examples are presented in a dialectical relationship, psychological theory having no meaning other than an attempt to understand real people, and the people we work with are unintelligible outside some systematic frame of reference.

In this book, Irving Spergel details the efforts of his Chicago youth gang project, a comprehensive, community-based model designed to reduce gang problems, including violence and illegal drug activity. He offers an in-depth description of the Little Village Gang Violence Reduction Project, revealing the successes and failures of intervention at each level: individual youths, the gang itself, and the community at large. Spergel relates how a coalition of criminal justice, neighborhood, and academic organizations_along with a team of tactical officers, probation officers, former gang leaders, and a neighborhood organization_developed strategies for dealing with hardcore violent male youths from two gangs: the Latin Kings and Two Six. This well-known project has become the model for a series of national initiatives. Policymakers, criminologists, and gang researchers will find this model valuable for assessing gang programs and reducing gang violence.

When is it appropriate to punish a child in the same way as we do an adult criminal? Using cases from his own court in Manhattan, the author amply demonstrates that the current punitive policies fail to steer children away from crime and that both society and the child benefit from a more individualized approach.

The image of the violent, anti-social gangster is part of the American landscape, often romanticised and glamorised by popular culture. Gang activity in the United States has been traced to the early 19th century when youth gangs emerged from some immigrant populations. Now, as then, gangs provide identity and social relationships for some young people who feel marginalised by the dominant social, economic and cultural environments in which they live. Gangs, however, are not simply a "street family" to some of the nation's disenfranchised. As distinguished by the U.S. Department of Justice, "a group must be involved in a pattern of criminal acts to be considered a youth gang." Between 1980 and 1996, the U.S. experienced significant growth in youth gangs, when the number of cities and jurisdictions that reported gang problems rose from 2863 to approximately 4,800 From 1996 through 1998 the growth seemed to slow down, but according to the 1999 National Youth Gang Survey, the number of gang members is again on the rise.

The first in-depth study of the political, social, and cultural history of juvenile delinquency in modern Japan, "Bad Youth" treats the policing of urban youth as a crucial site for the development of new state structures and new forms of social power. Focusing on the years of rapid industrialization and imperialist expansion (1895 to 1945), David R. Ambaras challenges widely held conceptions of a Japan that did not, until recently, experience delinquency and related youth problems. He vividly reconstructs numerous individual life stories in the worlds of home, school, work, and the streets, and he relates the changes that took place during this time of social transformation to the broader processes of capitalist development, nation-state formation, and imperialism.

Juvenile justice policies have historically been built on a foundation of myths and misconceptions. Fear of young, drug-addled superpredators, concerns about immigrants and gangs, claims of gender biases, and race hostilities have influenced the public's views and, consequently, the evolution of juvenile justice. These myths have repeatedly confused the process of rational policy development for the juvenile justice system. Juvenile Justice: Redeeming Our Children debunks myths about juvenile justice in order to achieve an ideal system that would protect vulnerable children and help build safer communities. Author Barry Krisberg assembles broad and up-to-date research, statistical data, and theories on the U.S. juvenile justice system to encourage effective responses to youth crime. This text gives a historical context to the ongoing quest for the juvenile justice ideal and examines how the current system of laws, policies, and practices came into place. Juvenile Justice reviews the best research-based knowledge on what works and what does not work in the current system. The book also examines failed juvenile justice policies and applies high standards of scientific evidence to seek new resolutions. This text helps students embrace the value of redemptive justice and serves as a springboard for the current generation to implement sounder social policies. Juvenile Justice is an ideal textbook for undergraduate and graduate students studying juvenile justice in Criminology, Criminal Justice, and Sociology. The book is also an excellent supplemental text for juvenile delinquency courses. About the Author Barry Krisberg, PhD has been President of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) since 1983. Dr. Krisberg received both his master's degree in Criminology and his doctorate in Sociology from the University of Pennsylvania. He is currently Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Hawaii and has held previous faculty positions at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Minnesota. Dr. Krisberg was appointed by the legislature to serve on the California Blue Ribbon Commission on Inmate Population Management. He has several books and articles to his credit, is known nationally for his research and expertise on juvenile justice issues, and is called upon as a resource for professionals and the media.

John Woods presents a theoretical approach and practical suggestions for mental health practitioners working therapeutically with young people who have abused. Drawing on his long-standing experience, he has developed an integrated theory that bridges the gap between existing cognitive behavioural and psychoanalytic approaches. He shows how this individual treatment model can be applied in a range of contexts including residential settings, group and family work, as well as in individual work. In-depth case studies throughout the book demonstrate how exploring the individual's whole life-course within a psychoanalytic framework enables connections to be drawn between possible childhood abuse and subsequent abusive behaviour. Guidelines are presented on working with the problems of self-destructiveness, masochism and depression facing the young abused/abuser and the impact of sexual abuse on sexuality, gender identity and sexual orientation. This is an instructive and thought-provoking text for all mental health practitioners and allied professionals working with adolescents who sexually offend.

Prevention and Control of Juvenile Delinquency offers complete description and scholarly analysis of major delinquency prevention and control programs. It links what has been done in the past with what should be done in the future. It therefore concludes with clear recommendations for future prevention and control efforts.